In St. Gregory the Great, the whole ancient world, the Church's first discipline and original government, run to their ultimate issue. In him the patriarchal system, as it met the shock of absolute power in the civil sovereign, and the subversion of the western empire by barbarous incursions, accompanied by the establishment of new sovereignties and the foundation of a new Rome, the rival and then the tyrant of the old Rome, receives its consummation. The medieval world has not yet begun. The spurious Mahometan theocracy is waiting to arise. In the midst of a world in confusion, of a dethroned city falling into ruins, the successor of St. Peter sits on an undisputed spiritual throne upon which a new world will be based in the West, against which the Khalifs of a false religion will exert all their rage in the East and South, and strengthen the rule which they parody. A new power, which utterly denies the Christian faith, which destroys hundreds of its episcopal sees and severs whole countries from its sway, will dash with all its violence against the Rock of Peter, and finally will have the effect of making the bishop who is there enthroned more than ever the symbol, the seat, and the champion of the Kingdom of the Cross. NOTES: [173] See Gregorovius, ii. 3, 4. [174] Gregorovius, ii. 6. [175] _Ibid._, ii. 5, literal. [176] Nirschl, iii. 534. [177] Third letter of Pelagius II.; Mansi ix., p. 889: Nefandissima gens. [178] Attested by St. Gregory of Tours, who heard it from a deacon of his church then at Rome. [179] _Ep._ i. 25, p. 514. [180] _Homily_ xviii. _on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1374. [181] Nahum ii, 11. [182] Micheas i. 16. [183] End of the _Homilies on Ezechiel_, tom. i. 1430. [184] Quoted by Reumont, ii. 90. [185] _Ep._ v. 42, p. 769. [186] Reumont and Gregorovius. [187] _Ep._ v. 21, p. 751. [188] _Ep._ v. 20, tom. ii. 747. [189] _Ep._ vii. 40, p. 887. [190] I have drawn attention to this fact, and the idea which it represents as attested by Popes earlier than St. Gregory, in vol. v., pp. 53-60, of the _Formation of Christendom_, "The Throne," &c. [191] Rump, ix. 501-2; see his words quoted above, p. 107. [192] _Ep._ vii. 34, p. 882. [193] Rump, ix. 502. [194] Providentissime piissimus Dominus ad compescendos bellicos motus pacem quaerit ecclesiae _atque ad hujus compagem sacerdotum dignatur corda reducere_.-_Ep._ v. 20, p. 747. [195] De vi et ratione Primatus Romani Pontificis--c. iii., quoting the letter of St. Gregory to Eulogius, viii. 30. [196] _Ep._ ix. 59, p. 976. [197] _Ep._ ii. 52, p. 618. [198] _Ep._ xi. 37, p. 1120. [199] _Ep._ vi. 60, p. 836. [200] _Ep._ iv. 38, p. 718. [201] _Ep._ v. 54, p. 784. [202] _Ep._ vi. 59, p. 835. [203] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 345, A.D. 594. [204] _Ep._ i. 43, p. 531. [205] _Ep._ ix. 121, pp. 1026-8, shortened. [206] _Dialog._, iii. 31, p. 348. [207] _Ep._ ix. 122, p. 1028. [208] Paralipom. i. 11, 18. [209] _Ep._ ix. 61, p. 977.